And This Is True

by Emily Mackie

'I kissed my father once, when he was sleeping.'

Nevis Gow is fifteen. For eleven years he has lived in a van with his father Marshall, travelling the country. They don t need people or school or jobs. All they need is each other. But Nevis doesn't just love his father, he's in love with him too.

Until one day Marshall crashes the van and everything changes. Stranded on a remote Highland farm amid a family overshadowed by grief, Marshall tries to steer them back to normality while Nevis fights to keep things the way they were. Soon, though, he comes to realise that nothing about his lost life in the van was quite as it seemed.

In Nevis's meticulously detailed record of events, lines blur between love and obsession, reality and wish-fulfilment, dreams and memory. Shocking, funny and poignant, this is the first novel by a young writer of remarkable talent.

Genres: Fiction, Scotland

346 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2010

About the author

Emily Mackie was born in Winchester in 1983 and grew up in Scotland. After graduating with an MA in Creative Writing from Bath Spa University in 2007, her first novel, AND THIS IS TRUE, was published in 2010 and was shortlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize as well as the Saltire Scottish First Book of the Year Award. Her second novel, IN SEARCH OF SOLACE, was longlisted for the Folio Prize and the Green Carnation Prize 2014.

Reviews

[Baba · Rating 3 out of 5]

Marshall's wife leaves him. Marshall opts out of society and moves into a white transit van with his son, Nevis aged four. Eleven years later they are involved in a motoring accident and are sort of forced to re-integrate into society... society being a rural farm house inhabited by a sad widow, his son, his sister and her daughter. This Nevis' story of how 11 years living in a van, distorted his relationship with his dad and his interactions with women. An often intense look at familial relationships and the price of loss, love and betrayal. 6 out of 12, Three Star read.

2011 read

[yizrolik · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm kind of thankful that yesterday, as I walked past this small bookshop, I decided to let my eyes linger a few seconds longer on this very book and found, now I can say it, a true gem.
Nevis' life had always consisted of living inside his van with his father Marshall, an obsessive writer, whom Nevis had always looked up to. And how could he not, when his whole world had always been his father?
It's a brilliant book about the impact parents have on their children, how they can mold them. It's a book about memories and how they can be corrupted by our own desires, but also how hard it is to retrieve the past - the truth - in its entirety.
Some scenes are so poignant and detailed they kept me from putting this book down and made me read it in one, long go.

[Helen (Helena/Nell) · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked reading this novel very much. It's a first novel, and it has that raw, authentic feeling of a narrative that matters intensely to the author. At the same time, she keeps it very pared back, very understated. The chapters are short. The first-person narrator is a boy-- a boy of fourteen, I think. Stupidly, and a stupid error, I commenced thinking the narrator was a girl, because the author is an Emily. But that was wrong. He is a boy, and he is a convincing young man too. His character comes through beautifully, and by the end, I totally believed in him.

The intense 'edge' of the novel is to do with teenage sexuality. This boy has been living in a caravan with his dad for years. And latterly he seems to have developed a bit of a crush on his dad too, romantic and sexual. The crush developed into a kiss: he kissed his father when he was sleeping and . . .

But the whole novel is about what happened next, and about what really happened. Because nothing is certain. People lie and dissimulate in this novel, because it is okay to have sexual feelings, but not some sexual feelings.

I thought the whole thing was beautifully handled and sensitively written. Towards the end, the intensity builds, and there is a sort of denouement, and an opportunity to work out what 'really' happened. Or not. I am not quite sure whether the ending was sufficiently satisfying. The build-up is so very intense, and so much of the novel centres on uncertainty, that it is very hard to find a resolution that feels absolutely right.

However, I did like this book very much. I liked the quality of the writing, and I would certainly look for anything else by Emily Mackie. Oh, and the dustjacket is amazing. What a gorgeous volume this is!

[Sophie L · Rating 3 out of 5]

I mean it was incredibly awkward at some parts sure but excluding that it was an amazing story with such original characters. Nevis's voice is confusing yet completely compelling.

[Olina · Rating 3 out of 5]

Probably a 2.5/5 - not a fan of this one. It reads as if the author thought about the whole "every memory is a memory of a memory" thing and decided to write a book around the premise, then hits you over the head with all this talk about truth and memory and false narratives. Interesting premise, I suppose, but... I rolled my eyes a lot. The graphic sex scenes didn't help either. I didn’t find any of the characters interesting except Galbraith (during his very brief appearances) and Duckman (for only about 50 pages of his existence in this novel).

It's not a bad book. It's just also not a good book.

I also think maybe I don't like reading books about writing.

On page 335/344, the narrator says:

"If this really is the end then there needs to be a twist... a revelation... a transformation... a change. There has to be development. There has to be a moment of clarity. Everything fitting into place, like a jigsaw. All questions answered. All knots carefully tied."

And on page 343/344:

"We've changed, I thought. I've changed. Perhaps that was one of the reasons I knew I'd come to the end. A character has to go through some sort of development - they have to be different at the end from how they were at the beginning. And I'm different now. I can feel it."

The premise is awfully gratuitous. He thinks of himself as a character in a story - even though throughout the novel he has had trouble with the idea of fictionalizing real life. His mental state is so fragile that every memory comes into question, every dream becomes memory, etc. Interesting concept, reminds me a little of The Catcher in the Rye. But ultimately, it's an especially cheesy conclusion to the last 150 pages of explicit examination of this pattern.

[جيهان ناجح · Rating 1 out of 5]

So weird, i didn’t enjoy it

[marie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very well done. Great characters. Awful and heart wrenching story, all the while you're waiting for something to...snap...

[Chloe Layton · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don’t understand what I’ve just read and the incest storyline was a bit weird (spoiler I guess ??)

[David Hebblethwaite · Rating 4 out of 5]

Emily Mackie’s first novel takes us into the mind of Nevis Gow, which is not the most comfortable place to be. When we meet him, Nevis is fifteen and, for the past eleven years, has lived on the road with his father, Marshall, a teacher-turned-writer (Nevis’s mother – whom the boy doesn’t remember – left Marshall for another man). Now, their van has been involved in an accident, and it seems the pair’s travels are at an end. They’ve been staying on a farm in the Scottish Highlands with the Kerrs: Nigel, the farmer, who’s coping with the death of his wife, Caroline; Nigel’s son, Colin (nicknamed ‘Duckman’); Colin’s cousin, Ailsa; and her mother, Elspeth. Nevis has been struggling to adjust to this static existence, because he doesn’t like all these people on his relationship with Marshall; you see, over the years, Nevis has grown rather too close to his father – in fact, he’s in love with Marshall.

And This is True is a character study that gains its affect from the interplay of two themes. The first of these is the way in which Nevis’s psyche has been shaped his life so far. It’s not just that his feelings for his father lead Nevis to do things (like stealing kisses when Marshall is asleep) that seem normal to him but less so to us. It’s also that Nevis has grown to have certain expectations of how life is going to be, and he struggles to cope when those expectations aren’t met – and to notice everything that’s going on around him.

The second theme concerns memory and truth. The text of the novel is Nevis Gow’s attempt to sort out his memories of what happened on the farm, whilst being only too aware that a memory isn’t necessarily ‘what really happened’, and trying to follow his father’s advice on how to write a good story, even when he finds that life won’t quite fit that model. Nevis discovers that maybe not everything he remembers is accurate, which, I suppose, leaves him in a quandary – if his past is as uncertain as his present seems to be, what does that mean for Nevis’s future?

The best passages in And This is True are simply stunning, when Mackie lays bare the pressures that Nevis is under. But there’s hope in there, too – the hope of journeys continuing. It ends on just the right note; the end, that is, of a fine debut.

[Luana · Rating 2 out of 5]

So it wasn't bad per se, it was just incredibly weird and awkward at times, slow at others, and without a clear and satisfying resolution. Hence the two stars. It's quite an easy read, the style grows on you, and the characters are original and surprisingly alive. I particularly loved Duckman, way more than I thought I would. And I love the retired teacher.

HOWEVER, it just didn't work for me (mild spoilers coming). The whole incest thing just didn't work for me. Sure, it was an interesting twist and one could see how it could come to it, considering Nevis had zero reference to the real world. But that is exactly my point. He started with zero reference and he finished just the same. There was no growth, no actual effort put into educating this poor child who has no idea how the world works, no actual parenting done. Marschall infuriated me to no end by being just so incredibly useless, by basically being the child of the duo. Up to the very end, Nevis did not realise what he had done wrong or why it was wrong. Sure, he might have let go of the past in some sort of way, but he didn't really go into the world as a functional adult, which just felt... underwhelming, unfinished, without a clear resolution.

I guess you could enjoy it if you're into weird topics or find a weird joy in feeling uncomfortable. Otherwise, yeah, not really.

[Kirsty · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautiful, horrible and totally believable. I adored this book.

[Beems · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think I was slightly disturbed the whole time and it just increased as we went, but it feels like a really important story to read, critique and educate on. Yeah, certainly made me uncomfortable and I just really did not like the main character (good work author).

[Aditi Chikhale · Rating 2 out of 5]

I

[Maddie Dantier · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely fucked but i couldn’t put it down.

[. · Rating 4 out of 5]

I bought And This Is True on sale purely due to its wonderful cover (which is fold-out and sort of like a map and just super cool), which reminded my slightly of my own drawing style.

The book is about the life of 15 year old Nevis. Nevis has lived most of his life in a van with his father, roaming around the UK. He has never been to school and his father, Marshall, doesn’t work – he is a writer. Their little world consists of the two of them, the van and literature. Their relationship is based upon understanding and love. They find themselves stranded when their van crashes, and Marshall decides they should start living on a farm together with other people. Nevis gets thrown into an unfamiliar society, where he isn’t the only person in his father’s life. But is Marshall’s sudden interest in joining with the real life to blame on the fact that Nevis, mere hours earlier, kissed his father? Or will they leave the farm when the van gets fixed? How can Nevis’ love for his father be wrong, when Marshall himself once said “you can’t help who you fall in love with”?

I quite liked the book, it was interesting and funny and the kind of book that made me think about all the lives I haven’t lived. Nevil is a very unreliable narrator, something which makes this book very fascinating. How is really the relationship between him and his father? What really happened in that caravan? How can you really know the difference between something you imagined and something that happened? What is memories, and are they reliable?

[Nicola Fantom · Rating 5 out of 5]

I've never read anything by this author before, not sure if this is her debut novel, but I will certainly keeping a look out for more of her books and doing some research on the author.

You know a book is good when you want to do this.

The book deals with some very sensitive topics from a 14 year old boys perspective. I absolutely devoured this book. It basically deals with the dangers of children not having a formal education and how much can go wrong with home schooling if not done in the right environment. This poor boy just leaps out the page at you, he seems so real, I actually cried for him and felt so sorry for the poverty stricken life he has had and how he has missed out on some many important things growing up. Sexual and mental distress is apparent from the get go, we know something is not normal about this child coming of age why does he have a sexual and romantic feelings towards his dad, why doesn't he know this is wrong and that there are different kinds of love!

[Gaëlle · Rating 2 out of 5]

So. I really don't know what to think. Halfway through it, I had no idea where it was going. Now that I'm finished, I'm still unsure.
This is a book about love, but not the kind of love you'd think. This a book about being different, being lonely. And mostly, this is a book about finding out who you are.
So, this could be nice. I mean, I like those kind of books. But it made me ill at ease at some points, and it reminded me way too much of The God of Small Things by Arundathi Roy. I have no idea if Mackie got inspiration from it, and it might be just a coincidence, but I find it really weird. Also, though I liked the fragmented narrative and some of Nevis's character, both of them also irritated me a lot. More, I feel like in this story, telling us about a really short period of time, about 3 or 4 weeks I think, nothing happens. It left me unsatisfied.

[Sarah Goodwin · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am desperate to read Mackie's new novel after hearing a reading from it, and so bought this on a whim to see if her style was just as good in her first book. And yes, it is indeed. I devoured this book, engaged by the depth and scope of the narrative and the strength of the images and characters. There is so much personality in the writing, so much that can be felt in it.

There isn't a terrible amount of plot. Things happen, but it's not an epic long saga spanning huge amounts of time - it's more like snapshots woven together in a vividly described way, interspersed with a more still and sluggish present - very like certain Atwood novels.

The only thing that nipped a star off was the ending, I felt there was too much left up to the readers determination, not enough concrete happenings. I wanted a firmer ending.

[Jenny (Reading Envy) · Rating 3 out of 5]

I have read some disturbing fiction this month - Noise, Room, and now this novel, "And This is True." Mackie, who has been longlisted for the Dylan Thomas Prize, writes about Nevis, who lived with his father in a van from age 4-15, without having any other social contact or formal education.

An unreliable narrator, a circular timeline, and questionable memories make it an intriguing read, and it goes by quickly.

[carelessdestiny · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a piece of social realism, it's completely implausible that any fifteen year old boy, much less one that has lived in a van with his depressed father for 11 years, has the kind of insight, knowledge and sensitivity that the narrator of this novel displays, but then it turns out that the "voice" of the novel is actually more like a grown up and very well educated person (someone who's name perhaps begins with an E and an M?)and that we're being entertained along the roads and byways of literary theory, psychology, philosophy and so on. It's very well done all in all, all be it somewhat over-intellectualized.

[Louise · Rating 4 out of 5]

This gets a four star from me, which usually means I really liked it, but in this case means it was a good book, well done, handling a difficult subject well.
Living in a van for eleven years together, with little contact with outside world, it's no wonder our main character falls in love with his dad...he had no idea that this is wrong. He only sees problems when other people come into their lives, though the other people are there because he acted out on his feelings.
I can't help but feel sorry for Nevis, so knowing in some ways, yet totally clueless to the world.
The last few chapters set the tone a lot darker, but not too out of the feel of whole book.
Cracker for a first novel.

[Rosiehope · Rating 3 out of 5]

I started off thinking this was a familiar, lovable tale of a dad and son on the road. It was not. It became really quite weird and uncomfortable and probably a better book for that. Be warned, this is not Danny Champion of the World.

[Sara Molinaro · Rating 1 out of 5]

Blah.

[Marisha · Rating 4 out of 5]

Amazing, disturbing and extremely thought-provoking. Nevis is such an unusual character!

[Ebonyrose · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my book of 2010 so far.

[Jan · Rating 2 out of 5]

For me too little happened to make this a worthwile read. The writing is not bad but the story a bit too dull formy taste.

[Rosie Olsen · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked the style of writing in this book but it wasnt particularly interesting. it was ok.

[Smit Zaveri · Rating 4 out of 5]

She makes you question everything you ever believed and then, with just a word or two, undoes your world.

[Linda · Rating 5 out of 5]

An original, fantastic story.

[Senura · Rating 4 out of 5]

I am scarred for life :'(